The Hurrle Family

Went disc golfing at orchard park today and took our nephew Chase along for his first time. The kids played on the play equipment and then we went for it. I think I got some pretty good shots of everyone. Enjoy!

Well it’s been nearly a week and the van hasn’t made a peep or made us think that the fix may not have worked. It seems that the Bar’s head gasket fix did the trick.

As I said before I am fully aware that it’s just a band-aid but it only has to get me through the end of the month and I’ll tear it down and replace the necessary gaskets.

I thank god for answered prayers and continue to pray for safe passage to and from California and Idaho.

Sunday morning came with Wanda’s alarm going off for church and her rolling over and turning it off and us choosing to skip church today and sleep in.

Saturday night I had researched and researched for what we could do about our auto troubles. Now I have been nursing the cooling system for the last few months. I knew we were losing water somewhere and had previously assumed it was the heater core as the heater was blowing cold air.

Here I’ll take a moment to explain that the motor in our Chevy venture is particularly prone and known to have faulty head and intake manifold gaskets due to the corrosive dex-cool antifreeze that GM uses. This is an issue that they are aware of with several thousand of their vehicles yet they refuse to do anything about. I have been in denial about this issue happening to us for the past few months and this has finally forced me to accept that it is happening to us.

I am mechanically knowledgeable enough to be able to perform the repair and it could be a weekend job but right now I just dont have the time or money to be able to tear apart our engine and attempt to change head and intake manifold gaskets.

During my research Saturday night I found several pour in treatments such as Blue Rhino, and Bar’s. After much consideration I settled on Bar’s. It came down to their $30.00 and $60.00 options. Both claimed to do the same thing but one was a little fancier and used carbon fibers. I elected to go with the 1100 as I need a band-aid that will last me a month and if its going to fail I would rather be out $30.00 instead of $60.00. Especially if I am going to have to end up renting a car to be able to go on our vacation.

We decided to get up and Try our luck again with going to Champoeg Park but we wanted to pick up a bottle of Bar’s Head gasket fix and pick up ninny to go with us. I bought a bottle of the sealant and we drove over to Wandas mom’s. I read the directions and they said to add the bottle to the radiator and then allow the vehicle to idle for 20 minutes with the heater on high and then let it sit and cool. I figured driving to Shampoeg would suffice as the idling time and off we went.

Within the first mile I could tell a difference. the misfire was gone and the van seemed to be running smoother than it has in a while. We decided for less stress on teh engine to drive the interstate out to the park rather than over the hill. I spend most of the trip talking to God and watching the temp gauge (which never rose above 1/4 of the way.

We got to Champoeg, I bout an Innova Teebird disc for golfing and we found out that half of the course was closed for regrowth. Fortunately it is a 15 hole course so we still got to play 9 holes. Later we walked a couple of trails, looked as some of the historic buildings and played a little more disc golf.

Sadly I forgot the camera so there are no accompanying pictures this weekend. We have driven a bit more since then and so far the fix seems to be holding. I will of course update if anything else happens.

First off we went disc golfing at the small course in Hillsboro on Friday which was enjoyable albeit I almost lost one of our discs in the rough,

Saturday we got up and went to the family matinee at Valley Theatre here in Beaverton. The film was “We Bought a Zoo” It was a rather good movie though I was disappointed in some of the language at the end. and we didnt see the last 5 or 10 minutes as the film actually broke and we decided to leave rather than hang out and wait until they got it fixed.

Next we decided to go out to Champoeg Park which I had heard has a pretty decent 15 hole disc golf course. About half way there the temperature gauge started climbing and didnt stop. I didnt let the van fully overheat because I was watching it but it was close. We pulled over and I opened the radiator which promptly sprayed fluid all over the windshield and scared the crap out of Wanda. I added some water and let it sit for a few in hopes it would cool down and come around.

After another 2 or 3 miles the needle was in the red again and so was my blood pressure. (For those of you who don’t know we are going to Disneyland in two weeks and we really need this vehicle to get us there.) Well we pulled over again and called a friend to ask advice and see what we could do. Well while waiting on the side of the road we hadnt thought about it and from open doors and flashers we killed the battery. After a while the guy whose house we were in front of came home and gave us a jump and some water. By this time we had been stopped long enough for the van to be cool and I had put lots of water in so we drove to the nearest town about a mile down the road.

Our friends got there and helped me “burp” the coolant system and we drove it somewhere to have dinner. At this point it was running extremely rough and I was very worried.

After dinner we drove home and it seemed to hold it together well enough though it was telling me that there was a misfire. by the time we got home the needle was almost in the red again but we were home and I wasnt sure what to do…

After doing plenty of research I got off to bed and figured I would deal with it tomorrow.

- Kris

Well, Wanda has been days now without her computer and I have spent days trying to figure out how to install the OS without going through the app store. We finally resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to purchase Lion for 30.00 and deal with it. Unfortunately with the way the computer was malfunctioning it wouldnt allow us to buy it either.

Finally I broke down and schedueld a genius bar appointment today and took it in. When I got there I explained to them the issue I was having along with an issue we have been having with the internal flex cable for the hard drive as well as a recall notice that I had recieved for the power adapter. I fully expected to spend between 30 and 70 dollars on repairs because I knew that the flex cable was a 50.00 part.

Well two hours and an administrative error later our computer is back up and running, they replaced the adapter and flex drive and even reinstalled the OS for us and didnt charge us a thing. I am pleased with this result. Now if we can only manage to retrieve our data off the external we were using we will be golden.

We wanted to go disc golfing again today but decided to try another course here in Beaverton. It was considerably longer and much muddier. Makaylas shoes broke half way through and by the end of the course we all had muddy feet. It was a pretty good time though.

-Kris

I love her hair here.

Our niece Dani went with this time.

Hurrrumph….

Wow… Look at it go!

Oh man!

Gearing up for a huge throw!

Nice toss!

Mid throw… And more importantly, mid pose.

The windup…

What a throw baby!

My favorite shot of the day!

Went disc golfing today in Hillsboro with Ninny and her boyfriend… It was a beautiful day, we got a bit sunburnt but overall had a great time.

-Kris

I got it, I got it!

The windup…

Seriously!? What a crappy throw

Look what I found!

Grrr…

Look at the flowers

Awwww <3